Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Modern 2,000+ years ago. Modern today.
.
No need to be an expert, to understand why garden centers are not 'on board'.

Calm. Facade, bench, pots, gravel, fade their colors into each other. I see the silhouette of branches in winter striking the house, and gravel. I hear the leaves, wind rustled, see their fall colors. Gravel crunching underfoot.
.
This house doesn't make the Garden Design special, instead, the choice to have this Garden Design is special.
.
Free Garden Design. Equally at home with a brick ranchburger ca. 1963, pioneer cabin, starter home, $2 million home in a gated community.
.
Myriad choices made with this Garden Design. Especially adore all of the 'no' choices.
.
Why is this Garden Design harder to choose than keeping foundation plantings, installed by the builder, and a pocked lawn needing mow/blow/go, fertilizers poisoning groundwater, zero aesthetics to increase property value, no choices for plantings to reduce hvac expenses, no thought for color, or pulling the foot outside to enjoy Nature?
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Picture from here.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

"You must learn now, that the important lesson – as long as you have your health – is that the divide is not between the servants and the served, between the leisured and the workers, but between those who are interested in the world and its multiplicity of forms and forces, and those who merely subsist, ......." A.S. Byatt

Before computers & cell phones, handouts at my lectures had the quote, above, at their top or bottom. USA landscaping is broken, knew this decades ago. My big discovery, above, Le Jardin Rustique. Blessedly discovered, in Europe, decades ago. Created from thousands of years of refinements. Le jardin rustique's have created, & refined me..Never tire of experiencing another's awakening to le jardin rustique..High, medium & low meadows, above. Came home with Tara Turf at first siting. A well known blogger, saw similar and said, "they even have daisies in the grass." He saw, without comprehension. And, he's a degreed residential architect, USA of course..What is this enfilade, above, to le jardin rustique? Survival of mind-body-spirit. Literally, and metaphorically. .Aside from beauty, unskilled labor to maintain, no chemicals or n-p-k poisoning groundwater/killing pollinators, no irrigation system, canopy-understory-walls-groundcover plantings to increase pollinator habitat & shade/sun the house as needed thru the years/seasons, increased property value/decreased HVAC, increase of crop yields by 80%, scientifically proven need of our bodies to harbor beneficial bacteria given to us from these habitats reducing auto-immune diseases, ADD, depression & more, there is a simplicity of relationship with Earth, as we intellectually engage, Earth provides & sustains beyond what we know we need. .We all need a-room-of-our-own, Virginia Woolf, “When a subject is highly controversial, one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold.”.If you have read this far, and have a mow-blow-go-testosterone-on-wheels-commodify-all-I-touch-landscape, why? Rejection with those landscapes was upfront with me, without knowledge of their replacement. Decades have been spent finding the answer. More than resonate, hope your inner core, from your gut, feels the words, above..Garden & Be Well, XO Tara.Jung knew, "Our lives are about getting the outside to match the inside." The time this takes & riches to be found are, indeed, our life..Links to scientific studies meander in previous posts, no time to look them up today..Pic via Pinterest. ." ‘Like life,’ said the painter. ‘We eat and are eaten, and we are very lucky if we reach our three score years and ten, which is less than a flash in the eyes of an angel. The understanding persists, for a time. In your craft and mine.'” – from “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary”, by A.S. Byatt.For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

.

Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

.

Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

.

Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

.

Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

.

Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Seating to create a gathering spot, figs for summer shade/winter sun over the benches, drystack stone wall cut into a slight slope forcing foot traffic into defined directions, formal boxwood framing pastoral views, tapering stone wall allowing only small machinery into the pasture from this direction, gravel terrace ready for men-trucks-heavy equipment, horses, or a catered soiree for 100.
.
And, of course, it must all look a century old, be easy to maintain, and provide interest 24/7.
.When something appears simple, it rarely is. Same is true of people.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic at a jobsite last week.
.Do you know the maximum pollinator habitat, above? Seriously, can you verbalize what creates the best pollinator habitat above? Answer at bottom.
.
Being simple requires each of the decades I've been learning about gardens. Better, being simple in a garden, takes me where Joseph Campbell says our eternity is. Ironic, in this American life/era, to have found my bliss in work.
.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I've taken Christopher Lloyd to bed again. Already 2nd-3rd time for his books. He's new & fresh, each time.

"By exercising a little vision you will come to realize that the tree, which has a possible future, perhaps a great one, may be more important than yourself, nearing your end. So it's worth thinking more about the tree and giving it a good start in life in the right position than about yourself, except in so far as it is a great delight to see the tree responding and developing under your sympathetic treatment."
.
Cool your house in summer with an understory deciduous tree, it will warm you in winter too. Site an evergreen tree in path of winter's winds. Sited properly trees increase property value. Chosen properly insects/wildlife expand pollinator habitat.
.
Studying Landscape Design across Europe for decades it's obvious what survives: trees, meadow, stone focal points.
.
Mr.-Mow-Blow-Go-Testosterone-On-Wheels commodifies landscapes into grass to mow, bushes to prune, annuals to plant, chemicals to treat, irrigation system to install.
.
Ok, I'll stop here. Too quick getting from trees to Mr.-Mow-Blow-Go-Testosterone-On-Wheels. Not enough time to pontificate fully today.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic taken at a client's property last month.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

She is Spomenka. We call each other 'Sister'. From Croatia, she has family there.

Sister sent me this last week, from Croatia.
.
Sister knows EXACTLY what will pull heartstrings. What is unique yet timeless. Simplicity.
.
And when we're together again, Sister's porch or my conservatory, she'll describe how this garden smelled, sounded, types of insects, birds, wildflowers, temperature, humidity, a house nearby & more. Sister will also tell me I was there with her.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Studying historic landscapes across Europe for almost 2 decades I was lucky to 'get it' about the use of meadows in Landscape Design. Meadows stole my heart. Meadows near Lucca, Italy save me from the tedium of traffic, standing in line & etc. Give me an unpleasant task, or person, and my brain/spirit leave for Lucca.

Of course I have a meadow, above. Set in the 1" spaces between gray flagstones in the formal Tea Olive Terrace. (Alas, the stone you see is my foot trail.)

Rimmed with the formality of an abelia prostrata hedge & etc., above.
.
In my meadow (can the start of a sentence get better?) English daisies bloom in Spring, rudbeckia fulgida x fulgida bloom summer-frost, annual blue ageratum bloom late summer, mazus reptans has it's tiny orchid blooms numerous months, then weeks with only stone. Cold stone formal. And I delight in that change.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Sir Edwin Lutyens put meadow straight up to, and touching, Sir Christopher Lloyd's Great Dixter. THAT is where I 'got it'. Hope you know about Lloyd's mother too. An early naturalist. A DEMENTED person offered to pull up my meadow recently. Thinking it was weeds. My college for ornamental horticulture & landscape design in USA? It was horrible, teaching me to landscape like Mr. Testosterone-On-Wheels-Mow-Blow-Go-Commodify-Everything-I-Touch. And to design from the street looking at the house. Still makes me cringe. Before Jesus even the Romans knew where to start a landscape design; from inside. Loved my time in Israel studying landscapes. Oh my, Puppet Barbuda came out to play a bit this morning.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Between the pecan trees, below, a table. An invitation. How to leverage the invitation? Will add 'shot' pea gravel.

.

Table/chairs can be used after a rain, table can be leveled more easily, lovely crunch underfoot, edging of old brick leading to meadow & letting gravel 'lap' onto roots of pecans. Oddly, once the gravel arrives it will say, "You WANT to come here.", vs. the existing, "Oh, that's nice."

Sunday, October 24, 2010

"It seems no wonder if our ancestors regarded Friendship as something that raised us almost above humanity. This love, free from instinct, free from all duties but those which love has freely assumed, almost wholly free from jealousy, and free without qualification from the need to be needed, is eminently spiritual. It is the sort of love one can imagine between angels." C.S. Lewis, from, The Four Loves.Arriving at the Barn Dance Friday, below. Is it obvious Pecan Orchard & I designed the meadow & gravel drive? No? Excellent, fabulous, wonderful!Wildwood cleared, figs rescued, below, a new roof, fresh paint, broken glass replaced &the old Dairy Barn, inside below, is alive again.Almost a century old, its terra cotta block construction, with original paint, below, has more centuries to serve.Couldn't resist showing you the desert table, below.Tea Table too, below.Heirloom chickens in their new home, below, next to the Dairy Barn.17 piece orchestra (3 members from the Atlanta Symphony), below, setting up in the tractor barn.Tractors were gone, below, for the wine/canapes.Pecan Orchard bought the land and derelict home with dependencies about a year ago. Her mission statement to live a gardening lifestyle AND be of service. A lifestyle witnessed living abroad for decades. Horses, sheep, heirloom chickens, potager, gardens, goats, ponds, meadows, woodland, barns & etc. A lifestyle including church, master gardeners, beekeepers, tennis, horse shows, family & Friendships. Meeting new people at the Barn Dance & hearing stories of grace bestowed via friendship with Pecan Orchard is a rich cord connecting us.

Poppets, Scruffed Up landscapes are a choice! Boxwood-In-A-Pot works most anywhere across time, continents, styles, incomes & etc. Each of the above flowers self-seed, require zero watering and came into my life by serendipity. A bird gave me the 1st English daisy. Ageratum came in the soil with peonies I dug up from Aunt Tilly's garden after she died. Working at a nursery, decades ago, a customer gave me the Rudbeckia fulgida fulgida.

Hmm. THE local. Hmm. Exit quickly. Silly girl, into another social pickle. Find Rabbit Hole in the meadow quickly....

.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

.

Pics taken last Sunday at Hedgerow Farm. I adore Tara Turf: pollinator garden, no irrigation, no chemicals, fragrant, little mowing, gorgeous, fabulous. Tara Turf has worked for centuries throughout the globe. I adore history.

Oooooooooooh, Poppets, learning to let go of my ego for simplicity took time. Knowing the landscape at Hedgerow Farm must look as if I was never there. More, as if time stood still; from a century ago. Yet, creating a vital, serene, exciting, kinetic, everchanging landscape to delight the eye and grace the soul.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Landscapes cannot have too many entries.Not always gates or doors. Use pair of: trees, bushes, urns, stones, wattles, columns & etc..Entries in gardens are PROOF of garden magic. No matter the direction, they are always entries. Something I try to remember about life. It may feel like an exit but it's always an entry. .Garden & Be Well, XO Tara.pic via It's About Time. From door, bricks, edging, vine, vista, colors, lichens, meadow, season, I can feel the coolness of the bricks on the palm of my hand, the push & sound of the door trying to open it further & smell the air.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Timeless perfection, deeper than you think, below. Why? Have you deduced wisdom in the plantings? Dwarf conifers, deer resistant & once established zero irrigation..Combined by design: contrasting textures - colors - forms, use of backdrop, focal point - furniture on the lawn, & no down time; showy all year. .Tara Turf: pollinator zone, feeds beneficial insects, fragrant, attractive to butterflies & honey bees, needs zero irrigation-chemicals-fertilizer, & less mowing than tradition lawn..I'm a GARDEN WHISPERER, are you?. Did you know this wasn't just furniture on the lawn?.Garden & Be Well, XO Tara.Pic from The World According To Isa

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Meadow, trees, house. A trinity complete. A landscape design of choice, above. Dramatically static. Aristocratic courtship of man & nature..Can't you see this throughout the seasons?.Plain? No. I see a flamboyant language. Elusive truth. A repertory of expectancy..Symbolist mystery with modern directness..Disparate harmony..Humble? Not in the least..Status in a meadow. Nature's & man's..I live in a subdivision. Of course I would love to live in a home looking across meadow into trees. Instead, I've created many garden rooms as a moat of grace around my home. And my life..I didn't know that when I began to garden..Garden & Be Well, XO Tara.Pic by Borjanna Eghbalian, Schloss Kasel, via Green & Stylish.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Entering Great Dixter, below, the household drive. Tires crunching along the gravel, scent of meadow.

Passing thru the yew hedge into this, above.

.

See the landscape design secret?

.

No?

.

Back your car down the drive, park it on the road, get out, walk up the gravel drive, slowly, and thru the yew hedge.

.

Notice the contrast of meadow to clipped lawn? Formal to informal?

.

Ha, the secret tool of the worlds most famous landscapes is

.

CONTRASTING FORMAL & INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS.

Did you think this gravel drive & meadow were 'natural'? Ha, not one inch of this drive or meadow were unconsidered. TOTALLY DESIGNED..TARA TURF was born in this meadow over a decade ago. And the epiphany of what the best landscapes create, FORMAL GARDEN ROOMS NEXT TO INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS..CONTRAST..Yes, contrast flower shapes/colors, tree forms, foliage colors/shapes & etc. Knowing, contrasting FORMAL/INFORMAL is the most important..Garden & Be Well, XO Tara.Lucky me, taking the pics at Great Dixter while Christopher Lloyd was alive. Note: In another area of Great Dixter meadow is designed up to, and touching, the house. Ha, remember the Tara Rule of Just Let It Touch?Oh, meadows have been sustainable-organic-eco-low maintenance-beautiful since before language was invented.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

If you have a focal point bench in your landscapeyou must be able to sit in the bench and see another focal point. Double Axis..My invention, Double Axis. Realizing all the best gardens have it. And. Yes, dahlings, more. The more axis views a focal point has the better it is. .From the house, above, you see an Enfilade to the focal point bench. From the bench, above, you see an Enfilade to the focal point house/terrace/urns..Isn't it amazing how one line in a garden looks like 2 gardens when viewed in opposite directions?.Garden & Be Well, XO Tara.Thank you Krystol for your English pics.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Nothing original here. It's all been done, for centuries. Yet it's fresh at each site. Easy to maintain..IN THIS LANDSCAPE:* Path mown thru low meadow on axis to home* Repetition of greens* Contrasting shapes, oval & connical, of large shrubs & trees* Gravel terrace scaled appropriately to architecture of home & functional use* Pair of planters, informing you, "Yes, enter here."* Plant on the house, Gertrude Jekyll, world's 1st landscape designer, said, "The first thing I consider in a design is what to put on the house.".I'm already in my new cedar Adirondack chair, from Smith/Hawken going-out-of-business sale, reading a book on this gravel terrace. Of course it's stained the color of the window trim..Garden & Be Well, XO Tara.Thank you Krystol for sending this pic from your England trip.